


What You Wish For

by ETraytin



Category: The Good Place (TV)
Genre: Bureaucratic infighting is especially scary in the Bad Place, What-If Story, character exploration, glen was harmed severely, no ducks were harmed in the making of this fic, shut up glen, what if all Michael's tortures had been as subtle as Real Eleanor?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-18
Updated: 2020-01-28
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:00:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 11,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22309054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ETraytin/pseuds/ETraytin
Summary: Since the beginning of time, The Bad Place has tortured humans in all sorts of predictable ways. Sure, throat lava, tarantula squid and bees with teeth do the job, but it just gets so boring after awhile! Michael's bold plan for Neighborhood 12358w promised to change all of that, to take torturing humans to a whole new level! Too bad it keeps failing. When a senior architect visits Michael and offers a few suggestions, Michael takes Attempt 334 in a whole new direction: giving the humans exactly what they want.(Renamed)
Comments: 15
Kudos: 57





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey all, I'm currently procrastinating during bar exam study, and it's making me feel suddenly very creative! Here's the start of a little something I've come up with, I have four chapters already so we'll see how it goes. This reboot is AU in that it does not correspond with Michael's report on length of reboots, but Michael is, after all, a known liar. Hope you enjoy, feedback is welcome and loved.

Attempt 333  
Day 154

“You can't keep pretending like this is normal, Michael! Everything is wrong here! Things fall from the sky and the ground opens up at random, nobody likes each other, I can't sit outside for twenty minutes without it starting to rain on me! And my soulmate is the world's most forked up dog!” Eleanor glared at the golden retriever sitting at her feet, its mouth open in a vacuous doggy grin. “It watches porn on my TV when I'm sleeping!” The dog put one paw over its nose, looking embarrassed.

“And you know what, Michael?” Eleanor stood up from her chair, bracing her fists on the desk as she leaned her diminutive body into his space. “I've figured out your game, and there's nothing you can do about it! Or at least, nothing that you haven't already done, right? Because I'm already in the Bad Place!” 

“Oh, for fork's sake.” Michael leaned back in his chair and tipped his face to the ceiling, not even bothering to look as he snapped his fingers. There was a clatter as Eleanor tumbled over unconscious, plus an alarmed little yelp as the dog scrambled out of the way. “Porn, Glen, really?” 

The dog writhed on the floor and then split open to reveal Glen, his human suit a very unbecoming pasty nude all over. He sprawled over the carpeting like a landed fish, limbs splayed in all directions. “I was homesick!” he whined. “You try living with a human full time for five months, eating disgusting food and drinking nothing but water.” Glen shuddered. “And anyway, she was already getting suspicious about the weather and all the restaurants serving nothing but food on sticks. Why do all the restaurants always have the same menus?” he asked suddenly. “Isn't that weird?” 

“Shut up, Glen,” Michael begged wearily, massaging his temples. “Five months of work, down the toilet without even a nice sewage leak to show for it. Get some clothes on and go make sure the other humans get back into holding so we can reset. And you're going to be the one explaining to everyone why you forked up at the hotwash tonight, so try and come up with something better than kibble and homesickness.” Glen whined but slouched his way out the door, leaving Michael alone in his office with the unconscious dirtbag who kept ruining his plans. 

Michael stared at Eleanor's slack face, untroubled and nearly innocent as she slept in the static unconsciousness that was the state of all human souls who weren't being rewarded or tortured. She should've been so easy. He'd had her all figured out after five minutes with her file, but he'd still spent dozens of hours poring over her life, then hundreds more after things had started going wrong in attempt after attempt. Eleanor Shellstrop was rotten, a selfish monster, a jerk who'd never put any good into the living world except by accident. Torturing her for a thousand years should've been a piece of cake, but here they were, nearly seventy-five years in, and she'd figured him out every single time. So far his longest attempt had gone barely six months, and that was partly because he'd introduced Eleanor a month later than everyone else in an attempt to put her even more on the back foot. It had worked, just not well enough. Nothing was good enough. What in the here was he supposed to do now?

A quiet boop announced the arrival of another complication. Michael was nearly as tired of dealing with Janet as he was the humans. At least the humans had the grace to pass out and let him wipe their memories in peace, rather than going out kicking and screaming every single time. In this attempt, Janet had swapped out her usual purple dress for a particularly virulent shade of green that, in retrospect, couldn't have helped in Eleanor's calculations of what place she'd landed herself in. 

“Michael,” Janet began, then checked herself as she noticed Eleanor. “Eleanor appears to have entered stasis. Would you like to revive her now?” 

“No, no,” Michael assured her hastily. “In fact, why don't you take a little break in your void and I'll meet you on the beach in two hours, all right?” 

“Okey-dokey!” Janet agreed with her bizarrely cheerful smile. Michael would never get used to that. Bad Janets were so much easier to understand, even if they were much harder to work with. “But before I go, there's an unscheduled train arriving at the station. Bye!” 

“What?” Michael jerked upright in his chair, waving a hand to open a viewscreen. Sure enough, the familiar black train was pulling into the station, right at the worst possible time. If Shawn saw the neigborhood between reboots and started asking questions... For a wild moment, he thought about just waking the humans up and telling Eleanor to keep her mouth shut, but that had about as much chance of working as telling Glen to not be such a dipshit. It didn't sound as though Eleanor had told the others this time before coming to confront him, so maybe he could just wake up the three and pretend that Eleanor was in a special torture session. Except Shawn would be doubly interested in seeing anything like that. He was so, so screwed. 

The doors to the train car slid open inexorably and a Bad Janet stepped out, chewing gum and barely looking up from her phone. The person who stepped out behind her was not Shawn, though, but rather a much smaller, teenage figure with dark hair and an expression of bright interest. “Dave?” Michael asked aloud, even as relief made his human suit weak at the knees. It still wasn't good; having a senior architect evaluate a neighborhood that wasn't even a hundred years old meant that things weren't going well, but at least Dave was a colleague and could be reasoned with. He probably hadn't even brought hot ladles along with him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For anyone who may have forgotten, The Good Place inexplicably has two architects named Dave. Dave the human architect designs classy Hooters locations in Tarantula Springs. Dave the demon architect is Michael's senior colleague with the teenage skinsuit who gives him his first neighborhood assignment.


	2. Chapter 2

Michael hurried out to the train station, dodging the “residents” who wanted to ask questions about the reset. Most of them had gotten used to it by now anyway and were using the downtime to break windows or piss in the fountains or get creative with the food on sticks. With the humans out of the picture, everybody got to cut loose a little until the next round started. It wasn't exactly the picture Michael wanted to put forward of a functional neighborhood, but at least a demon bent on destruction wasn't a demon whining in your ear about how clumsy fingers were. He almost tripped over Sheila, who'd shed her human suit entirely to bip around in magic panda form, and mounted the steps to the train platform. “Dave, what a surprise! I wasn't expecting anybody from the home office for at least another bearimy!” 

Dave gave him a reserved smile and a nod. It had never been clear why Dave had chosen a teenage boy for his skinsuit, but he'd had it for so long now that everyone was just used to it. Michael didn't understand how anyone could tolerate being so short. Human children were uniquely terrible, and he was just as glad that any of them that arrived in the afterlife went Someplace Else. He also had to admit that there was a lot to be said for the evil potential of teenage boys, so maybe Dave had just been ahead of the curve. He wasn't one of the most respected and creative architects in the entire Bad Place for nothing. “Terrible to see you again, Michael,” he replied cordially. “I'm not here on official business, I just got Bad Janet to give me a ride out here on my day off.” 

“They gave you a day off?” Michael asked, grimacing. “I'm so sorry.” 

Dave shrugged. “Office politics. Some days you're the tarantula squid, some days you're the ear canal.” He dismissed the topic with a wave. “Your neighborhood is looking a little rowdier than in the mockup drawings.” Across the square, Todd had set the Steak on a Stick on a Stick on fire and the three Matthews were using dishware from The Good Plates as frisbees. Vicki was dragging a microphone and amplifier into the open air theater. Things were about to get very bad indeed. 

Michael resisted the urge to tug at his bow tie “You know how a new neighborhood is, there's always a few kinks to work in. Nothing that a few nice quiet decades of watching humans torture each other won't cure.” 

“I see.” Dave took a step closer to Shawn, glancing over to make sure that Bad Janet was busy texting. “I've heard from a reliable source or two that your neighborhood is in big trouble. How many times have you had to reset from scratch?” He smiled thinly at Michael's barely concealed panic. “Don't worry, Shawn doesn't have a clue. He may be in charge, but he's no architect. I'm here to help. Let's talk.” 

Mutely, Michael gestured the way to his office, his mind churning. The idea that anybody at HQ knew about the reboots was terrifying, but at the same time it would be nice to talk out the whole disaster with somebody who'd designed neighborhoods for thousands of years. After three hundred reboots, he himself was simply running out of ideas. He was distracted enough that it wasn't until he was back in his office that he remembered Eleanor was still in there, puppet-limp and drooling just a little. Humans were so gross. 

Dave raised his eyebrows at Eleanor, giving her a once-over that was both dubious and interested. “That's one of your humans, I assume?” 

“Yes,” Michael sighed. “She's the troublemaker. The others settle down nicely into their roles nearly every time, but this one never buys in. Eleanor knows she doesn't belong in the Good Place, which is perfect because it just grates on her from minute one, but it's also a big clue that something's wrong.” He thought about going behind his desk, but it just seemed weird under the circumstances so he paced instead. “And worse than that, she stirs up the other humans. She's supposed to drive Chidi crazy with ethical dilemmas and she does, but not enough! And she and Jason just get along swell, two dirtbags hiding from the entire universe. Before I know it, they're banding together to solve the mystery or make themselves better people or hijack a train to the Medium Place, and it's all Eleanor's fault. I can distract her, I can throw her off her game, but it never seems to matter for very long.” 

“Hmm.” Dave rubbed a hand over his chin thoughtfully. He gestured to Michael's desk chair. “Do you mind?” At Michael's go-ahead gesture he sat down, steepling his fingers. “It sounds like you've got a good start, but your torture model isn't sustainable. Why don't you take me through a typical attempt?” 

For the next hour, Michael laid out his opening gambit and all the variables that unfolded from it, how it was all supposed to work, and how it got derailed at every possible point. It wasn't a matter of brains; Chidi was easily the smartest of the quartet and he'd only solved the puzzle a dozen times. It wasn't a matter of pure random chaos either, since Jason had no idea where he was literally any of the time. And Tahani was so desperate for the approbation she hadn't gotten in life that she would overlook just about anything to continue believing she'd made it to the Good Place. There was something about Eleanor and the way she interacted with the neighborhood that inevitably made everything melt down. Laying it out like this just made it seem more hopeless than ever. 

“I think I see the problem,” Dave finally said, after Michael had showed the tragic finale to the most recent attempt. “Do you have any antimatter around here?” 

“You do?” Michael asked. “I mean, sure, of course, here you go.” He used his limited control of the mainframe to summon a steaming pot of antimatter and two mugs. “Do you take lust or wrath with yours?” 

“Both, thanks.” Dave stirred his drink idly as it made small explosions against the spoon. “Did I ever tell you about my friend Andrew?” Michael shook his head. “He was a Good Place architect. Back in the day, when we were still getting the whole system set up and figuring how it should all work, we architects all palled around some, Good and Bad both. An architect is an architect, right? It was before everything got so 'angels this' and 'demons that.' The rules weren't so rigid back then either; we didn't have things like spider quotas and scream per minute targets. You weren't around then, were you?” 

“No,” Michael admitted. “I stayed on the creation team till it was nearly finished. I just really enjoyed designing distant stars and individual blades of grass, so I dawdled a little.” 

“Yeah, the good old days,” Dave agreed.. “Anyway, Andrew and I would get together for drinks every bearimy or so and talk about our neighborhoods. I always got a kick out of faces he'd make when I talked about the new tortures we came up with, but he was pretty game. One time I asked him what Good Place architects did with their humans if they weren't torturing them. Did they just make a paradise neighborhood and leave it alone with a Janet to look after it? You know what he told me?” 

“What?” Michael asked, leaning forward with interest. He'd taken the chair next to Eleanor by now, ignoring the occasional snore. He'd researched the Good Place as much as he could while designing this neighborhood, but denizens of the Good Place were notoriously unwilling to talk with demons. 

“He said that Good Place neighborhoods are incredibly high maintenance. You couldn't just wind one up and walk away because the happiness quotients would plummet in less than half a bearimy, no matter how carefully they designed it. The humans had everything they could possibly want or need or dream of, but they hated it.” 

“How can that be? Did they forget the bathrooms? That's easy to do, and it makes the humans very upset.” 

“No, it was because there was no challenge,” Dave explained with a sudden grin. “They gave the humans all they wanted or needed, and their little ape brains couldn't tolerate not having to struggle for anything. It was worse because the first neighborhoods were self-repairing, so if a human made a sculpture or dug a hole or smashed their house to pieces, it was always back to normal within a few days. Wanting to be good at something was the same as being good at something, so they never needed to study or practice, and with all the greatest works of art, literature and music there for the enjoyment, there was little incentive to make things. The humans practically scaled the walls of the Good Place trying to escape.” 

“So you're saying the Good Place wasn't very good at designing neighborhoods?” Michael offered. 

“I'm saying that humans are very bad at knowing what will make them happy,” Dave countered. “Andrew told me that they had to go all the way back to the drawing board to make a Good Place neighborhood that would actually work, and it was all about enrichment. Every neighborhood would wind up full of projects and contests and simulated adventures so the humans wouldn't get bored, and even then they had to switch out neighborhoods every hundred years or so and give everyone a complete change of scene. A typical Good Place neighborhood takes an on-staff architect, a Janet, and dozens of minor angels just to keep it running. They're lucky they don't get many humans these days, I don't know how they'd keep up.” 

“Having everything they want makes the humans bored,” Michael mused. “And boredom is a kind of torture. Like that neighborhood you designed, the one that was nothing but metal folding chairs and Readers Digest Condensed Books. That must've been insanely tedious.” 

“It was!” Dave said enthusiastically. “I won a design award for that, before forking Shawn-” He paused. “You put the profanity filter in? That's hilarious.” 

“It's the Good Place,” Michael reminded him with fake piety. “No one swears in the Good Place.” 

“That's awful and I love it. In any case, I've been trying to test the ideas that Andrew gave me for bearimies, but the top brass have never gone for it. I'll get something set up and running, and suddenly Shawn will be there ordering a few dozen four headed bears to 'liven things up.' They have no idea of the potential,” Dave insisted. “I love your idea of making the humans torture each other, but you're going way too fast. The torture, the nudges of things that aren't right, the chaos sequences and sinkholes and witch hunts, you know what it is?” Dave barely waited a beat before answering himself. “It's enrichment.” 

“I'm not sure I follow,” Michael admitted, but he had a glimmer that was like the first shimmering spot of a magnificent oil slick. 

“You're creating your own enemy,” Dave insisted. “You're keeping Eleanor's brain engaged, keeping her on her toes because she has to be alert every second. She's hiding something, so she's cued to look for other things that are out of place. And the ethics lessons; Chidi's getting an opportunity to teach an audience that actually seems to absorb information. Tahani is constantly motivated by throwing new and different parties and trying to connect with her soulmates, and Jason... well, he's from Florida, he's a special case.” He spread his hands. “Sure, they're uncomfortable and moderately tormented, but they're never bored.” 

“I can't just stop torturing the humans, though,” Michael pointed out. “I have more than a hundred demons out there who are going to have some serious questions if I suddenly turn this place into paradise.” 

Dave shrugged. “Then make the torture smaller,” he suggested. “You must know by now how to get under their skins in little ways that they don't even want to admit. Big tortures risk giving the game away, but if a human is in paradise and they still aren't happy, are they going to think the problem is with heaven, or themselves?” 

“I see...” And he really did. “I'm going in too hard and fast. If we want the torture to last a thousand years, we need to change it up. It could be great...” He looked over to Dave. “Will you help?” 

“I'll help you get it set up,” Dave offered, “but then I've got to get back. I have a very special birthday surprise party to plan for Val.” His smile was enough to chill Michael down to his carefully hidden tentacles. Office politics, indeed.


	3. Chapter 3

Eleanor opened her eyes to a strange room. It was a very bland room, sort of soothing, like a doctor's waiting room or the lobby of that place she'd worked where everybody was way too into yoga and sharing their feelings. The air smelled waiting roomish, sort of blank and sterile with a hint of ozone. Really, the only odd notes were the massive green letters on the wall saying “WELCOME! EVERYTHING IS FINE” and the fact that she had no idea how she'd gotten here. 

She took a deep breath. Right, well, this was hardly the first time she'd woken up with no idea where she was, but normally she was wearing way less clothing and usually she was in a bed or the back of a car or, one memorable occasion, draped over the side of a fountain with a parks worker poking her to see if she was dead. This was arguably better, but also much weirder. The first thing to do was get the fuck out of here and figure out where she was. 

Before she could do more than straighten up, the door opened to reveal a tall, white-haired man in a retro suit and bow tie. “Hello, Eleanor,” he said in a voice that was so trustworthy as to immediately make her a little more wary. “I'm Michael. Come on in.” 

It was tempting to say no just to see what he'd do, but she wanted answers too much for that. Besides, he was tall and authoritative, which was oddly reassuring even in these circumstances. Eleanor followed him into an office with fabric paneling and big windows, and a very weird portrait of a stoned-looking twenty-something on the wall. She tried to get a look out the windows, but they were obscured by lush green plant life. Was she even still in Arizona?

Michael sat down behind the big polished oak desk and motioned for her to have a seat. She sat. The surface of the desk was decorated with weird vases shaped like chess pieces, but the blotter was empty but for a single manila folder in the center. Michael picked it up and began to look through it. Eleanor shifted in her seat a moment. “So, Michael. I've got a couple of questions.” 

He looked at her over the top of the folder. “Yes?” 

“Where am I? How did I get here?” she blurted. “And who are you?” 

“Ah, yes.” Michael set the open folder down. Eleanor saw a picture of her own face, but she couldn't read any of the text. It didn't even look like language. Had she had a stroke? Lost her memory? Wait, she'd read the words on the wall without trouble, that had to mean her brain was still fine and it was the world that was screwed up. Michael interrupted her thoughts. “You, Eleanor Shellstrop, are dead. Your life on earth has ended, and you are now in the next phase of your existence in the universe.” 

“Oh.” Eleanor froze for a moment, the words hitting like a punch in the stomach. She tried not to let it show. “Okay, I have a couple more questions then. How did I die? I don't remember dying at all. And... where is this?” 

Michael consulted the file. “Ah, well, we normally erase memories of traumatic or embarrassing deaths, and yours was both. You're probably better off not knowing. As for where you are, you have, against all the odds, made your way to the Good Place. So congratulations.” His voice was flat, his face bland, but under it Eleanor caught the faint thread of distaste. She was really good at telling when people thought she was trash. It was a handy skill even if she didn't give a damn what they thought. Michael was definitely in that category and only trying a little bit to hide it. 

“The Good Place, huh?” She straightened in her seat and looked around a little bit. “Cool. Not really how I expected it to look. So are you, like, Angel Michael?” 

“No, the Christian conception of heaven and angels has very little relation to what the Good Place is really like,” he told her. “None of the human religions got more than five percent or so correct. But it's a wonderful place, full of the best of the best humans from Earth. Mostly. I'm an Architect,” and she could hear the capital letter, “I designed this neighborhood to be the perfect place for perfect people. And, well, you.” 

“Hey, what the fork, man?” she demanded, throwing prudence to the wind. “Fork? What?” 

Michael sighed. “You can't swear here. Most of the people in the neighborhood don't enjoy profanity, so it's filtered out.” 

“Fine, whatever. What's your deal with me anyway? You don't even know me!” Eleanor insisted. 

“On the contrary, I know everything about you,” he informed her in a weary tone. “I'm the Architect.” He waved a hand and suddenly a screen appeared in midair, showing a picture of Eleanor surrounded by a lot of red and a few green words. They were things she'd done, she realized immediately. Secret thoughts, bad habits, antisocial actions. There were things on that chart she'd never told anyone, and some things she'd forgotten entirely. “While humans are on Earth, each one gets a score based on all the good and bad things they do. The very best people with the very highest scores go to the Good Place. Everyone else, well, you can probably figure it out. Your score,” he informed her blandly, “was not high.” 

“Well then, why am I even here?” she demanded, trying to hide the shudder running down her spine. Eleanor had never been religious, but she'd crashed enough church functions for the food and free t-shirts to have a pretty good idea what happened to people who didn't go to Heaven. “Did somebody make a mistake and dump me into your perfect neighborhood?” 

“Not exactly.” He really did look tragic, like Santa Claus feeling sad over putting someone on the naughty list. “You see, in the afterlife, every human has a soulmate. Someone who is their perfect match, totally in tune, the perfect companion for eternity. Most of the time, a human destined for the Good Place has a soulmate who is morally and ethically compatible with them, someone who shares their values. But every once in awhile it doesn't work out that way, and one soulmate will be destined for the Good Place while the other one is not. The folks in charge don't believe in separating soulmates for eternity, so if a pair of soulmates are ethically misaligned, their scores are averaged together to determine where they'll both go. In your case, your soulmate is so good, so morally upright and ethically virtuous, that they were able to overcome your truly abysmal score and drag you up to worthiness. So congratulations,” he said again, weakly. “Welcome to the Good Place.” 

Eleanor stared at him, feeling like somebody had dumped her brain into a blender and hit frappe. Part of her was incensed that this asshole would dare to judge her, like what gave him the right, but another part was still reeling from seeing all her secrets spelled out in bright red letters and another part was still shrieking over the fact that she was dead and didn't even know how or why. After a minute with no signals coming down from her brain, her mouth went off without her. “I have a soulmate?” 

“Everyone has a soulmate,” he told her again. “And when you find yours, you really owe them a big thank you.” 

“Find them?” she repeated, still working without much useful mental input. “Can't you just tell me who it is and like, put me there?” 

“It's not that simple.” He rose and motioned to her, heading towards a different door. “Come on, I'll show you around.” She followed him on automatic. 

They stepped out onto the main street of the quaintest little village Eleanor had ever seen. Little storefronts crowded together behind beds and boxes of flowers while people walked up and down the middle of the street, chatting in groups and pointing things out to one another. It looked like she wasn't the only new arrival. “This is your new neighborhood,” Michael told her. “Three hundred and twenty-two human beings, chosen for maximum compatibility and harmonious coexistence. Of course everyone is new right now, but you'll eventually come to know all of them like family.” 

“Does every neighborhood look like this?” Eleanor asked, swiveling her head to look around. “There's... a lot of vegan restaurants here.” Vegan restaurants with really dumb names, at that. 

“No, every neighborhood is built specifically for the residents who will live in it, to suit their tastes and preferences. Most good people prefer cruelty-free dining, so the neighborhood is full of restaurants catering to their tastes. Because you were included as a trailing soulmate, as it were, I'm afraid you weren't accounted for in the design. You may find it a bit less comfortable at first, but I'm sure you'll fit in here in no time.” His false heartiness said he doubted that very much. “Anyway, let me introduce you to Janet.” 

“Hi there!” came a voice from just behind Eleanor's right shoulder. Eleanor jumped and spun to find a tall woman in a weird purple stewardess dress giving her the most unnatural smile she'd seen on anything outside a Chuck E Cheese. “I'm Janet.” 

“Uh, hi,” Eleanor ventured. This woman was either a robot or an axe murderer, she was pretty sure of it. 

“Janet is the foundational mainframe of this neighborhood,” Michael explained, giving Janet an indulgent smile. He actually seemed to like Janet, momentarily losing his longsuffering disdain face. “If you have any questions, she can answer them, and she can also make anything that you need.” 

“I'm very useful,” Janet agreed. “Would you like to know any secrets of the universe?” 

“Can you tell me who my soulmate is?” Eleanor asked. 

Janet paused for a moment, her entire body going mannequin still, creepy smile frozen on her face. “I have no information on that topic for you,” she told Eleanor as she unfroze, suddenly affecting a frown that was just as fake as the smile. “Only you and your soulmate will be able to recognize one another. Good luck!” With that, she literally disappeared, right in front of Eleanor's eyes. 

“What the fork?” Eleanor muttered, unable to help herself. That was going to get super irritating really fast. What was the point of being in heaven if everything was going to be so weird? 

“Janet's great,” Michael assured her, touching her elbow to steer her onward. “You'll really love her when you get to know her. Let me show you your house.” 

“I have a house?” she asked sardonically. “I'm not going to be sleeping in a closet or something because I don't really belong here?” 

Michael paused, turning to face her fully. She had to tip her head back a little to look at him; dude was freaking tall. “Eleanor, I know this isn't an ideal situation,” he told her, sounding earnest for the first time. “I know you must feel out of place, and frankly I'm not entirely sure what to make of you, but this is the Good Place, and you live here now, so I hope to make it good for you too. Let's just give it some time, all right?” 

“Yeah, okay,” Eleanor agreed, unsettled by the sudden burst of sincerity. “Let's see my new eternal home.” 

“That's the spirit!” Michael led her out of the center of town, down a tree and flower lined path. “I thought you might like a little distance from the center of things while you get your bearings,” he told her. “It's not too long a walk, but you can use a bicycle, or Janet can move you anywhere you like in the neighborhood.” 

Eleanor looked around, trying not to be charmed by the scenery. She'd never really been out of the southwest, and Arizona didn't have anything like this lush garden landscape. Birds chirped in the trees, and ladybugs and butterflies were everywhere. She pulled her attention back to Michael, but it was kind of a wrench. “So this soulmate thing,” she said again. “Everybody's got one, right, and they're supposed to find them here? Janet said I'd just know. How does that work?” 

“Oh, it's different for different humans,” Michael told her. “I don't really know very much about it, to be honest. I never paid very much attention to human soulmates until it became such a big issue here. I'm much more excited by things like engineering the constellations in the sky and making sure all the blades of grass are growing in the right direction, you know? I'm an Architect at heart. Not that I have a heart, really, that's just a squishy ball of muscle that... never mind. Most humans say they just look at someone they've never seen before, or someone they've seen every day for years, but suddenly there's a click, and they just know. It can take quite a long time for some humans. You're lucky though, you have a clue.” 

“I do?” Eleanor asked blankly. 

“Of course! Your soulmate must be an exceptionally good person to have been able to bring you here with them,” he reminded her. “I'm absolutely not allowed to disclose point totals, but I imagine that if you spend time figuring out who the very best people in town are and make friends with them, you'll find what you're looking for.” 

Eleanor wasn't at all sure she actually wanted to find her soulmate, especially not if they were some goody-two-shoes, holier-than-thou asshole who'd never made a mistake in their entire life. Especially not if she owed them for avoiding an eternity of torture. That would make for some awkward pillow talk. An eternity of pillow talk with one person who she couldn't possibly ghost and get away from. Yeah, she was just going to hope she got a good few decades in before whatever clicky thing set in. “Sounds great!” she said aloud, just as they rounded a bend in the path.

“Ah, here we are,” Michael said, sounding pleased. “Your new home.” 

The house wasn't huge but it wasn't small either, two stories with a gable roof and lots of windows. The whole thing was painted a funky purple color that looked weird but also kind of cool. “This is mine?” she asked. 

“Of course,” he replied. “Don't you recognize it?” At her blank look, he prompted, “You drew this house when you were eight years old, when you were spending that summer on your grandmother's couch. It was your dream house and you'd have it all to yourself, with nobody to bother you or scare you or make you get them more wine out of the basement. You did layouts of every room, but I updated them a little bit since you're not eight anymore.” 

Eleanor's jaw dropped a little. “I remember that,” she breathed. “I was so tired of not having a place, but then when I got older I was always working anyway and I always had roommates so somebody else would do dishes. I never really had a place of my own. That's kind of shirty when you think of it.” She checked momentarily when the word “shirty” came out of her mouth, but she was already getting used to it. 

“You've got nothing but time now,” Michael said gently. “Go on and look around.” 

She didn't want to seem too eager, but it was pretty hard not to run up the stairs and fling open the door. Eleanor contented herself with a half-jog and a nice solid pull that was maybe a little bit fast. “Oh...”

Most of the first floor was one room, with a big television on the wall and one massively oversized, extremely comfy-looking chaise lounge in front of it. It was the perfect setup for someone who wanted to watch television alone, picking only the shows she liked. A nook in one corner had a big beanbag chair and a shelf of brightly colored tabloid magazines to choose from, while another boasted a cute little dining table with only one chair. The wall near the television held a stereo system with speakers large enough to set a house this size shaking. Through a sliding glass door at the back she could see a glider swing built for one, and a hammock under a huge spreading tree. 

Eleanor stood in the doorway, not quite daring to go inside. She could feel Michael at her back, looking over her shoulder. “It's exactly what I wanted,” she murmured, almost afraid to say it aloud. “It's amazing.” 

“Good,” said Michael, sounding satisfied and maybe just a little smug. She guessed he'd probably earned that much. “Take a look at the kitchen, I think you'll really like that.” 

The promise was enough to have Eleanor stepping into the house, walking over plush carpet that smelled like it had never had a bottle of wine spilled on it, following a path she knew just from walking it in her head over and over again. The kitchen was more like a big alcove off the living room, with a big fridge and microwave but no oven. She hadn't known how to use a stove till she was like sixteen. Instead there were dispensers lining the counters, a Coke machine, a milkshake dispenser, an odd-looking one that read “Fried Food!” and another that said “Candy!” In the center, in pride of place, was a large machine that read “SHRIMP!” in huge pink letters. Instead of dishes to wash, there was a huge stack of paper plates and plastic cups and utensils. “Humans don't actually need to eat in the Good Place,” she heard Michael saying from behind her, “but most of them want to, especially their favorites. I know you're not much of a cook or a vegan, so I thought you'd enjoy this. They fill themselves, and so does the fridge. If you want anything else, you just have to ask Janet for it.” 

“You know,” Eleanor mused aloud, “I'm starting to believe that this is actually the Good Place.”

Something about the way Michael smiled at that seemed off, but maybe he was just a weird alien angel who didn't have human facial expressions. “I'm glad,” he told her. “Eternity is a very long time, and I want you to be happy. I'll let you get settled in.” 

Eleanor waited till Michael was gone before she explored the rest of the house. The upstairs had a bathroom, which was normal and weird at the same time. Did dead people have to pee? Did they get stinky even in the Good Place? It also had a bedroom with a massive, cloud-soft bed and another television, and a smaller room that was full of Cabbage Patch Kids and brand new, pristine art supplies that had never been stolen from a school or chain restaurant. She stood dumbly in the doorway for a minute and just stared at the little closet full of doll clothes, the easel, the pyramid of unopened Playdoh cans. She'd forgotten putting this room in her plans, but seeing it again took her right back to being eight years old. That had definitely sucked, so she closed the door quickly and went back downstairs to poke at the shrimp dispenser. It was amazing. 

If this was what being dead was going to be like, Eleanor figured she could deal with it. The neighborhood was weird and kind of creepy, and she definitely didn't belong here, but that was their problem, not hers. The soulmate thing might wind up being a problem eventually. No way was she going to spend eternity hitched to some granola factory who'd probably pretend to ignore her in public, no matter what they did in the bedroom. That kind of thing was okay for a weekend if he was buying the drinks and had a decent enough car, but not for anything longer. She wasn't going to be anybody's project, and she wasn't going to change who she was just to fit in here. 

“And anybody who doesn't like it can soak my deck!” she announced to the empty room. Okay, that was going to be hard to get used to.  



	4. Chapter 4

“Michael, Michael, Michael!” 

Michael winced as he heard the voice calling out to him, but turned to give Vicky a pleasantly neutral look. She'd run across the square, totally abandoning the limp she'd been affecting for the past few reboots, but none of the humans had seen her yet anyway. She was panting a bit when she finally caught up. “Yes, Vicky?” 

“What the fork is going on?” Vicky demanded. “We didn't have a welcome party last night, and where's the chaos sequence? Where's the clown house? And I saw Jason this morning wearing a track suit!” she hissed. 

“Not here, please,” Michael insisted, taking her arm and pulling her into the empty dining room of Polenta To Go Around. It turned out that demons weren't particularly fond of vegan restaurants either, though they'd pretend for the sake of the illusion when necessary. “You knew this reboot was going to be different,” he reminded her. “Dave and I explained it to all of you in the orientation.” 

“Yeah, bored and isolated, scour their souls from the inside, blah blah,” Vicky parroted, rolling her eyes. “That's fine in theory, but it's like you're not even torturing them!” 

“It has to be subtle,” Michael reiterated. “When they start seeing the torture coming, it defeats the whole purpose of the exercise. I know it's radical, but we are at the point where we need radical solutions if we don't want another string of failures. We're all in too deep on this to stop now,” he added. 

“But what are we supposed to be doing?” she demanded. “Are we just supposed to sit around with our thumbs up our asses waiting for the humans to get tired of paradise? This is like watching blood dry.” 

“I have some ideas about that,” Michael told her, “but I wanted to talk with you specifically about a new part.” 

Vicky instantly perked up. “Oh yeah?” 

He nodded. “I was thinking about what happened in the first attempt, how miserable you made Chidi by exploiting his complete inability to be decisive about anything. And about how Eleanor and Tahani are when they're around anyone who's better than them. I think we can exploit that.” 

“That was so excellent,” Vicky said wistfully. “He was a basketcase. Angelique never managed to make him that unhinged.”

“You're absolutely right,” Michael lied. “There's no Real Eleanor in this scenario, but I think we can make it work. It'll be quite an acting challenge, though. I need somebody who can give me Real Eleanor's naive ingenue personality and at the same time convince the humans that they're the best person in the neighborhood, all while keeping in close contact and not giving away the game.” He studied her intently. “Do you think you can do it?” 

“Absolutely!” Vicky squealed, clapping her hands together. “I'll get started on a character study right now. This is going to be so amazing.” 

“Remember, subtlety is the key!” Michael added. “It's the role of a lifetime, but only if it actually lasts a lifetime, right?” 

“Got it,” Vicky nodded. “Subtle.” 

****************

Chidi's afterlife wasn't quite what he'd expected. Not that it wasn't nice, certainly. After all, it was paradise! He had a sun-drenched apartment over a little vegan cafe, wall to wall with shelves full of books that somehow always contained the volume he was looking for. The refrigerator was always stocked with almond milk that he could be certain was ethically sourced (heaven, after all!) and the blackboard in his living room could literally anticipate where he was going once he started jotting notes on it. In terms of a place to spend eternity, he'd really done well for himself. 

The people in the neighborhood were nice too. He'd finally left his apartment after a few days buried in the thrill of reading treatises long since lost on earth and gotten a look at the new neighborhood. Everyone was so friendly! It was the sort of place where literally everybody said hello to everyone else, and it almost seemed like at any minute an old fashioned stage musical was going to break out. But in a good way! The vegan cafe beneath his apartment was excellent, so he wound up there for most of his meals. 

Sitting and watching the people gave him time to watch and contemplate them. Very few of the residents here spent much time alone, it seemed. They were always grouping up in pairs and trios to crowd around the little tables, chattering about how wonderful it was here, or what they'd done back on earth, or who their soulmates might be. There was a lot of conversation about soulmates, and how one found theirs, and who'd already paired off, and what it might feel like. 

On the third day he ate dinner in the cafe, Chidi witnessed a soulmate meeting. An older man with thinning hair and a nervous face, a woman close to his age wearing a voluminous shawl and sipping tea at a table, both of them were largely unremarkable at first. Then the man had stopped dead as he walked past her table, she'd looked up, and suddenly they were both laughing and shrieking and hugging as though they'd found a long-lost loved one. The entire cafe burst into applause, Chidi included. He went up to his apartment soon afterwards, though. 

When he admitted it to himself, Chidi wanted a soulmate very badly. He wanted it almost more than he wanted to finish his treatise, almost more than he wanted to figure out how to get in touch with even one great philosopher. (And sure, Rousseau and Heidegger and probably a bunch of others had perhaps deserved the Bad Place, but surely at least a few were around, perhaps in other neighborhoods?) That was the real reason he kept going downstairs, not for the quinoa salad, but for the possibility. Somewhere among these three hundred twenty-two people was the one person he was meant to spend eternity with, and when he found that person, somehow he would know, and he would be sure. He hoped it would be soon. He hadn't really expected heaven to feel so much like he was just waiting for something to happen. 

In the meantime, though, he had more than enough to do. Janet had been able to provide him with a complete copy of his thesis and equipment to write with. Computers didn't seem to be a thing in the Good Place, but touching the manuscript with a pen would open space in the text to write, and a finished page would turn from script to print automatically. It was strange and a little slow, but it worked well enough. He had a lot more material to work with now, and a lot of revising to do. Knowing there was an afterlife was enough to invalidate four or five hundred pages of work, to say nothing of the knowledge that there was an objective standard for good and bad deeds. He wished he could call Alessandra and tell her about it. Even after they'd broken up he'd admired her sharp mind and, once he'd licked his wounds a little bit, they kept in touch about new theories and articles. She'd be nuts about the unpublished volume of Kant's notes that Janet had showed him yesterday. That was another good reason to find a soulmate, just to have someone to talk to. Philosophy wasn't as much fun without anyone to debate. 

He was sitting at his desk, elbow deep in revisions to Section 12, Chapter 3, Point 7, Subpoint 5 when there was a strange scratching noise at his door. Curious, he rose and opened the door, only to be nearly bowled over by a small, fuzzy form rushing his ankles. It looked up at him and barked. He suddenly realized it was a puppy, possibly the cutest one he had ever seen. It was pure black from nose to tail, with huge brown eyes, long ears, and a little whip of a tail.

“Where'd you come from?” Chidi asked, crouching down to pet the pup's head. “I didn't realize this was dog heaven too. You're a cute little guy!” His voice was getting embarrassingly syrupy, but the puppy seemed to like it, judging by the speed of his wagging tail. 

“Puck!” came a feminine voice from down the hall. “Puck, where are you?” The pup barked again, even more excited. A woman Chidi hadn't met before came around the corner and hurried towards them, beaming. “Oh, there you are! Are you making friends?” She smiled at Chidi, and for a moment he felt his words caught in his throat. She was very pretty, long dark hair and wide brown eyes, plus a smile that could stop traffic, but he wasn't sure that was why. His heart was suddenly pounding, and he felt a little nauseous. “Hi, I'm Natalie,” the woman announced cheerfully. “I don't think I've met you yet!” 

He found his voice, and his manners, and offered his hand. “I'm Chidi,” he told her, only a little stilted. “It's very nice to meet you. Is this your dog?” 

“Yes, that's Puck, he's just a baby.” Natalie shook his hand and froze, her eyes suddenly flying up to his. “Did... did you feel that?” 

Chidi's heart flipped over. Feel what? What was he supposed to feel? “Um...” 

Her already bright smile became nearly blinding as she threw her arms around his neck. “I can't believe it's you! I was afraid I'd be one of those fifty-years-to-find-your-soulmate people! I'm so glad to meet you!” 

“Oh! Yes, that's... that's wonderful!” Chidi stuttered, his mind racing. Was that what he'd felt, the sudden dryness in his mouth and racing heartbeat when he'd first seen Natalie? Was that what it felt like to meet your soulmate? Maybe it was, or maybe he felt things a little differently? Who could really describe the qualia experienced by another sentient mind? Natalie seemed absolutely sure of it, and Puck was caught up in the excitement too, racing around their feet and barking. It was like the moment in the cafe, except he was in danger of ruining it entirely. He wrapped his arms around her waist and hugged her back, trying not to broadcast too much uncertainty. 

“We're going to have so much fun together!” Natalie promised him.


	5. Chapter 5

Jason spent the morning throwing plastic bottles at ducks. That had been one of his favorite things to do when he was a kid, except the ducks were flamingos and the bottles were empty spray paint cans. There were a lot fewer empty spray paint cans in heaven, and Janet kept giving him full ones instead. That was cool too, he had about twenty now and he figured that after lunch he'd probably go find something to tag, but it wouldn't really be the same without Pillboi or any of his buds around. 

Michael, who was the mayor of Heaven and looked like the guy who sold popcorn on TV, had told Jason he was dead about a week ago now. That had been a bummer to hear. He'd had so much he wanted to do with his life! He'd never even seen Disneyworld, much less made it all the way to Miami. He wondered what had happened and why he couldn't remember it. Hopefully it had been awesome and had involved a lot of explosions and no swamp boats. It must have been super good, because they let him into heaven and everything. Michael also said he had a soulmate here, and something about them being a lot better at doing good things than he was, but he'd stopped paying attention by then. A soulmate would be cool, especially if it was somebody like Pillboi, somebody who liked doing things he liked to do instead of only doing dumb boring things he didn't like to do. 

Most of the people in heaven were pretty boring. It wasn't like Jacksonville, where you could find a rave or a riot just about any day of the week, and where just walking down the street at 3am was bound to make something interesting happen. In heaven, everybody went to bed when it got dark out, and there weren't even any clubs for dancing or fighting. Maybe they didn't know about dance clubs, Jason thought suddenly. He'd seen a movie once at Sears while he was hiding from the cops; it had been about a guy who went to a town where nobody knew about dancing. The guy had taught his friends how to dance and fight with tractors, and then the townspeople set a bunch of books on fire and everyone had a party. It was a great movie, and sort of inspiring. Maybe the people in heaven just needed somebody to teach them about dancing! 

The idea was exciting enough that Jason abandoned his pile of empty bottles and ran back to his house by the lake. It wasn't quite the same as a house on the swamp, but it was close enough to feel like home, plus it had a huge TV and an Xbox that could play Nintendo games too. Janet, who was like a hot lady but also a computer but also maybe Michael's wife had helped him decorate it with a bunch of dope posters and stringy lights, and now it was perfect. He called it Budland, and all it needed was some buds to share it with. “Hey Janet?” he called. 

There was a bloop noise, and suddenly Janet was right behind him. “How can I help you?” she asked, her voice all nice the way cashiers were when you weren't stealing things. “Do you need more bottles?” 

“No, I'm good,” he assured her, “but I need some posters. How do I make some posters for my new dance crew?” 

Janet blinked. “Do you have a dance crew now?” 

“No, but I'm gonna!” Jason explained enthusiastically. “I'm gonna teach all our neighbors how to dance, and we'll have raves and maybe there'll be a club! Like back in Jacksonville I had a sixty-person dance crew, except there's less people here so maybe it'll only be thirty or forty. Do you know how to dance?” 

Janet thought about that for a second. “Unclear,” she finally said. “I know every dance that has ever been created, but I have never attempted dancing.” 

“You can be on my crew!” Jason told her. “I'll teach you all my best moves, and mix us up some dope beats to move to!” 

“That is not something I am prohibited from doing,” Janet replied, which sounded like probably yes to Jason. “All neighborhood social activities must be approved by the Architect before they can be advertised. Michael is currently in his office, if you'd like to speak with him now.” 

“Yeah, let's do that.” Jason nodded and dug under his bed, looking for a nicer, shinier pair of track pants. If he was going to talk to the mayor, he wanted to make a good impression. 

***********

“Creativity, good; strong motivation, good; teamwork, improving.” Michael looked up from his file folder to regard Chuck, whose large frame was folded uncomfortably into one of the guest chairs. “And I notice there have been no biting incidents since Attempt 297, that's significant progress and I don't want you to think I haven't noticed.” 

“The gummy humans helped,” Chuck admitted, “but I'm going through a pack a day! I just don't understand what we're doing here!” he exclaimed, throwing out his hands to encompass the whole neighborhood. “I at least got the point when we were torturing them without hurting them; that makes sense even if it's boring. But if we're supposed to leave them alone, what the here are we even doing?” 

“Not leave them alone,” Michael corrected, “just don't interact with them more than necessary for the illusion. We want them to be isolated and simmering, just discontent enough to not feel good, but not distressed enough to know they're being tortured. It's like when you have a human and a giant pot of oil, you can throw them in when it's already boiling and they'll try to get out, but if you heat the oil while they're soaking in it, they'll stay in much longer before they even notice what's happening.” 

Chuck thought about that for a minute, his face screwing up in concentration. “I dunno boss, it still sounds boring.” 

“I understand. What you need, I think, is a vacation.” Chuck looked up in alarm. “Not that kind, a working vacation, a change that's as good as a rest,” Michael added quickly. “How would you feel about a temporary reassignment? I know a guy who's looking for a few good underbed monsters for his neighborhood's theme bearimy. I think you'd be good at it.” 

“Underbed work?” Chuck repeated, brightening instantly. “And I wouldn't need a human suit? Count me in! I'll bite me some feet!” 

“That's the spirit,” Michael encouraged. “I'll just arrange the paperwork then-” He broke off suddenly as the door burst open and Jason rushed in. Michael checked instinctively to make sure everything in the office was normal-looking, thankful that Chuck did not insist on removing his suit during performance reviews. “Jason, hello. What can I do for you?” 

Jason's outfit was particularly revolting today, as human accouterments went. He'd paired a blindingly shiny pair of gold trackpants with a red button-down shirt satiny enough to look perpetually wet and a suitcoat printed with the Jacksonville Jaguars logo at least two dozen places. It would've looked right at home among the millennial demons in the Bad Place. Jason was apparently attempting to dress up. He stopped in front of Michael's desk. “Mister Mayor, I have a promposal for you.” 

Chuck gave Michael a raised-eyebrow “for real?” look. Michael pasted on his most benign, avuncular smile. “Thanks Gunnar, I think that was all. I'll get the papers to you later,” then turned his attention to Jason. “How can I help you, Jason?”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Huh, well it seems like the show and I had the same idea about what the problem with The Good Place might be, though they took it in a different direction. I guess we're officially AU from here, then!

Tahani's new home was a marvel worthy of the Good Place, truly even more elegant and tasteful than the pied-a-terre she'd kept in Paris that spring when she'd had Karl Lagerfeld design her entire wardrobe. (Much of it had been completely unwearable, of course, but couture was what it was.) True, this home didn't boast a view of the Eiffel Tower, but it did have a massive number of tennis courts, a surprising number of them, really, several swimming pools, massive gardens, and an interior floor plan so large that even after two weeks she was not sure she'd found all the rooms. Typically a home this size would require at least handful of live-in staff to keep it in order, with dozens more available for events and special occasions. In the Good Place, however, nothing ever became dusty and the floors seemed to sweep themselves, and the ever-helpful Janet could do the work of a crack catering team with a simple wave of her hand. As a result, Tahani had the whole place to herself. It was... it was lovely, of course. 

Perhaps it seemed a little more lonely than she was accustomed to because the living areas were so obviously set up for a couple. The master bedroom suite was richly decorated and exceedingly plush, the closet filled with beautiful clothes that never required laundering, but there was another closet that stood conspicuously empty, a second sink in the bathroom that Tahani rarely used. A few of the rooms she'd explored stood completely empty, as though they'd been created and decorated, but never put to any purpose. Tahani had asked Michael about it, not to complain, certainly, but merely for curiosity's sake. 

“It's for your soulmate,” Michael had informed her happily. “When you find your soulmate and make that connection, it's likely you'll want to spend all your time together, getting to know each other and building the bond between you. If the house is already prepared, you won't have to worry about remodeling or changing anything, and they're sure to feel more welcome.” 

“Oh, of course, of course,” Tahani had replied, because it made sense, for the most part, though it didn't seem as though redecorating should be very taxing here. “I supposed I'd better get a wiggle on and find my soulmate quickly, then! Don't want to waste any time!” 

“That sounds like a wonderful idea,” Michael had told her, his face as benign as her old tutor, Fred Rogers. “Just don't be too discouraged if it doesn't happen right away. It could take a few days, or it could take years, but what does that matter when you have all eternity? Just allow it to happen and be happy.” 

It was good advice, and Tahani had told herself she ought to follow it, but, well, she was impatient, sod it all! Was it so wrong to long for a connection, one perfect bond with someone who loved her more than anyone else? She had earned her way into the Good Place, she deserved to perfect her happiness, didn't she? Surely there were ways to nudge the whole business along a bit. 

Parties were the obvious solution. They were the best way to meet her neighbors, which would surely increase her chances of finding her soulmate. There was no chance to make a connection with someone she never spoke to, after all! It certainly didn't hurt that Tahani excelled at planning and throwing parties, so she was likely to meet her soulmate while at her very best. In that spirit, she'd organized and thrown two lovely parties already, just intimate little mixers of thirty or forty neighbors so they could all get acquainted. She could work her way through the neighborhood in just a couple of weeks this way. 

Throwing a party in the Good Place was quite different than anything she'd done on Earth. Tahani was accustomed to spending a great deal of time on her planning and organizing, making sure every detail was thought of in advance and entirely perfect. Simply selecting flowers could sometimes take hours, if not days of work with the florist, and then there was the catering, the music, arranging for the parking of fleets of limousines, managing the press, so much to do! None of that applied here in the Good Place. All she had to do was call Janet and tell her it was time for a party, and within an hour the entire thing would be set up, entirely flawless and ready for the guests. It was so marvelously convenient, and saved so much time! At this rate, she was going to have to find a new hobby just to fill the extra hours. As Michael had said, she did have eternity! 

It was utterly gauche to throw parties on back to back evenings in the same house unless it was Christmas or Fashion Week, so Tahani needed to find other plans for today anyway. She decided to spend the morning baking, then perhaps visit the neighbors. She hadn't seen inside most of the other homes in the neighborhood yet, or even the outside of many. Surely not many of them could be as large as hers, and none as well decorated. Not that she would ever brag, of course. She simply wanted to make friends with the people she was going to spend forever with. 

Baking in the Good Place was different as well. It was so much simpler than baking back on Earth! The oven was always the right temperature, the necessary ingredients were always in the cupboards no matter what she wanted to make, and everything she'd tried so far had come out tasting exactly like she'd hoped. Today's scones were no exception. She tucked them into a charming wicker basket, changed from her baking-scones dress into a going-out-for-a-quick-jaunt-to-the-neighbors dress, complete with a very fetching sunhat, slipped on heels appropriate for walking, and set out on her adventure. 

The first few houses were a bit disappointing, to be perfectly honest. None of them were nearly so large or impressive as Tahani's, not that she was keeping track, but they were all lovely in their own unique ways. Apparently in the middle of the day many people were out and about, and the ones she did encounter were already occupied with their daily pursuits. She was invited by one neighbor to a meditation session and another one to help with the gardening, but as she was not dressed at all for either activity, she merely provided a gift of scones and moved onward. 

At the fifth home she visited she met Bart and Nina, a delightful older couple who had found each other on their very first day in the neighborhood. “It was completely out of the blue,” Bart told Tahani enthusiastically as they sipped coffee on the sun porch. “I hadn't even heard of soulmates yet, but when Nina asked if I knew where The Falafel Truth was, I looked in her eyes and knew I was supposed to be with her forever.” 

Nina gave him a loving smile and squeeze his hand as she turned back to Tahani. “It was the most amazing feeling I've ever experienced. I didn't even realize how lonely I was on Earth until I got here and met Bart. It's as though there was a gaping hole inside me that I'd been ignoring my whole life.” 

“I see,” Tahani replied, worrying the hem of her dress with restless fingers. “It sounds very lovely, quite lovely indeed. I should be going though, I'm hoping to visit all the neighbors on this side of the meadow today.” 

“Of course, Tahani, it was great to meet you, and thanks for the scones!” They waved as she departed, and as she walked down the path Tahani could still see them snuggled up on the porch, delighting in their togetherness. It was, perhaps, permissible to have a few feelings of envy, even when one was in the Good Place. 

She was so absorbed in her own thoughts that she nearly collided with the man on the bridge before she even saw him. “Oh!” she exclaimed, stumbling backwards and off-balance even in her walking heels. 

He darted forward and caught her by the arms, steadying her before she could fall. “Hey, don't worry, I gotchu,” he assured her, patting her lightly on the elbow. “You were like, not even looking around!” 

“Yes, I suppose that's true,” Tahani admitted ruefully, taking in her unlikely savior. He was extremely attractive, she noticed right away, near her own age, and wearing a spectacularly tacky blue and yellow tracksuit. “I'm very sorry to have run into you like that.” 

“No big deal, homie,” he assured her with an easy smile. “I run into people all the time. Sometimes it's with my go-cart, and that's way worse. You didn't even knock me down.” 

Tahani blinked. “Yes, well...” She extended a hand. “I'm Tahani al-Jamil, I live in the home on the end of the lane. The large one, with the fountain. And the tennis courts.” 

“Sweet.” He took her hand and pumped it more firmly than she'd been expecting. “I'm Jason Mendoza, I'm from Jacksonville, Florida, and I live over by the pond with all the ducks.” He made a vague waving gesture with his hand, somewhere off to the east. “They're not real ducks, they're just for pretend, so it's okay if you throw things at them,” he confided, then picked up the can he'd dropped in the collision. 

Belatedly, Tahani realized she'd interrupted Jason in the middle of an art project. He appeared to be spray-painting graffiti onto the side of the bridge, quite obscuring the lovely brickwork. So far it read “BORT,” and she really had no idea where he might be going from there. “Is that allowed?” she asked him, gesturing to the spray cans. 

“Yeah, I guess,” Jason told her. “There's no cops here, and Janet gave me the paints herself. Plus the Mayor said I can't have auditions for my dance crew until everybody's gotten used to their houses and stuff, so I gotta keep busy. You ever tag anything?” he asked hopefully, offering her the can. 

“Oh, no, I really couldn't,” Tahani demurred with a hasty step back. “I'm afraid I have far too many errands to run, and I'm not much of an artist. Would you like a scone?” she asked, taking one from the basket and holding it out to him. 

Jason gave her a surprised grin, and oh dear, he really was attractive despite whatever deficiencies in intelligence or proclivities he might have. “Hey, thanks!” he said, taking the scone. “That was really nice of you.” 

“I hope that you enjoy it,” she told him sincerely. She thought for a moment about inviting him to tomorrow's party, then decided against it. Perhaps Jason would be more suited to an outdoor soirree, maybe something centered around the swimming pool or the gardens. She would have to make sure there was no paint available, naturally. “It was a pleasure to meet you.” 

Tahani walked all the way into town and stopped at a few more houses, but didn't find anyone else at home. Thinking of Bart and Nina, she stopped at The Falafel Truth for a quick lunch, then headed back towards home. Jason was no longer on the bridge when she arrived, and oddly enough, there was no sign of any paint either. Perhaps it was like the self-cleaning floors, she mused, nothing stayed disturbed here for too long. She supposed that was convenient, but wondered idly if Jason would be disappointed. It seemed a shame to make something, even a piece of graffiti art, and have it so carelessly wiped away. It didn't occur to her until later to wonder who the Mayor might be, or why he wouldn't want people dancing, but by then she was back in a party planning mood and didn't give it much thought.


End file.
